Happy Easter

Easter is tomorrow, and we have fun, though simple, plans. The easter basket excitement in the morning should be great fun, followed by an easter egg hunt with the eggs we dyed today. In the afternoon we head to Andrea and Craig's for Easter Dinner. Mom and Dad are off on vacation this week, so unfortunately they won't be joining us.

Here is a picture of Julia from a few weeks ago, when she was trying on her Easter dress, given to her by Benne. Lets hope we can get her into it tomorrow! (She is so picky about what she wears!)


Today we had a lovely day outside, enjoying the warm sunshine. We took a morning trip to the nursery to get some flowers. I went with the kids while Jeff stayed home to get some work done. I was so pleased with how well the kids cooperated. As you can imagine, two little ones at the nursery could have been a major challenge, but they did really well. They were great helpers, and helped me get some of the plants into the ground once we got home as well. There is more to do tomorrow. We are planting a cutting garden (I hope... I'm new at this, so I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing....) I'll post pictures of our progress soon. It's going to be very kid-friendly, with snap peas, sunflowers, sweet peas, and assorted other easy growing bloomers (again, I hope!)

Happy Easter, everybody!

Hooked on Hardball

I'm hooked on Hardball with Chris Mattews. Thanks to the writer's strike perhaps, or perhaps the sheer amazingness of the political drama unfolding this season, I've been religiously tuning into the nightly political news on MSNBC. It's way better than a soap opera, or even Survivor. Reality TV of a new flavor, for me at least. I love watching the pundits sort through every little detail looking for significance and meaning. The discussions on TV and in the newspaper editorials about Obama's speech yesterday have been particularly fascinating. I haven't had the opportunity to see the whole speech yet, but wow do I intend to based on what I've heard. Obama never ceases to impress.

And because no blog post would be complete without pictures of my kids, here they are at the beach, from a weekend outing we made on an unseasonably warm day in February.

Special visit from Nana and Grumps!

We had a wonderful visit with Nana and Grumps this weekend! It was so nice to spend some concentrated time with them. Julia and Andrew were in seventh heaven. After WEEKS of counting down, the weekend was finally here!

Grumps and Andrew got in some great bonding time. Here they are enjoying a book together:

This next picture shows Andrew wearing a very special, very old pair of Liderhosen (spelling??) that Jeff wore when he was the same age. There is a darling picture of Jeff in his baby book wearing this outfit. It was so much fun to try it on Andrew and compare pictures. Andrew looks a lot like Jeff did at that age.

This one turned out sideways (I still have that inexplicable problem every so often), but you can hopefully see Susan and Andrew in the life sized maze at Happy Hollow. We had a great time exploring Happy Hollow which is just perfect for the 2-4 year old set.

Here we are on the dragon train ride at Happy Hollow:

Julia is peeking out of a window in a giant shoe, straight out of a fairy tale.

Me and Andrew:

The net result of Nana and Grumps' visit. Unadultrated, 100% happy, exhausted wear out.

Nana and Grumps, thank you for a lovely visit! Come again soon!

Hello again. I've been so busy lately that blogging has completely fallen off of my list. I'm hoping to start it back up again. To get me going, here is a cute picture of the kids with their nanny Wendy. They are wearing new hats and gloves, a Valentine's Day gift from Wendy last month.

Busy day

Lots of fun today out in the front yard.

Andrew is looking like such a big boy! Julia loves to swing really high!

A neighbor, Hannah, came by to play too.
Even Whitney came out to join the fun.
And what better way to end the day than digging into a tub of Ben & Jerry's?!

Friday fun with Benne and Grandpa

Yes, Julia is in her swim suit, washing the car, on a winter day. She insisted. Luckily it was unseasonably warm this afternoon. We didn't really mean to was the car by hand on a winter day, but the car wash place was out of order. We decided to do a little spot cleaning back at home, and somehow it escalated into a full scale car wash and Julia felt she should be in her swim suit if she was in danger of getting wet. It was quite funny. Thanks, Dad for helping get the car clean!

Packing excitement

Julia and Andrew will be going on a vacation to Benne and Grandpa's house for the night on Saturday. I told them last night and Julia was SO EXCITED she started packing her suitcase. She spent about 20 minutes running all over the house collecting things that she needed for the trip. Everything from her special blankie (which she gave up sleeping with last night because it was already packed and she wanted to keep it packed!) to all of the pants she owns (the drawer is empty now), to her rocking chair, sit'n'spin, 6 dolls and about 20 books. I did tell her it was only for one night... Several times we had to hunt down more and bigger bags to contain all her things. Jeff noted that she takes after me. (sigh...)
Here's another picture which better shows the progress we made over the weekend organizing and decorating our entry. We added the mirror/hooks thing, and the pictures.

Everything is waiting by the door for Benne and Grandpa to come. I don't think she really gets how long it is between now and Saturday!

30 seconds in the life of Andrew

To help demonstrate the pace of trouble around our house... these three pictures were taken in the space of about 30 seconds. From one trouble spot to another, with no wasted time inbetween!


Note the new haircut, and the cute red jammies. (I bought the red jammies for Julia, but she refuses to put them on... Andrew might be prone to trouble, but at least he isn't as particular as Miss Julia! They're close enough in size already that a roll at the sleeves and pant legs will make them work for Mr. Drew!)

Andrew's first haircut

We finally broke down and gave Andrew his first haircut, at 19.5 months old. Here he is in the barber chair, sitting on Daddy's lap. He definitely didn't want to sit in the big chair by himself (even after big sis Julia smartly demonstrated to him how it was done... very cute) but once he got to sit on Daddy's lap, he was just fine. And while I had decidedly mixed feelings about trimming those darling curls and little baby wings, he does look quite adorable with the new 'do too.


Right next door, here's Julia getting a trim at the ladies salon.


Both of them look like such big kids now with their new haircuts, especially Andrew's which is more dramatically different (altho we did keep some of those curls!) I'll post a photo of their new finished haircuts shortly...

Running progress report

I have been following the Couch to 5k program found on Coolrunning.com, as I've mentioned previously. Aided by the wonderful podcasts by Robert Ullrey, and by Nike+, I've been more motivated and more consistent than ever before. It took me 2 weeks to finish Week 4, due to the holidays, but I think I'm ready to move on now, and have just returned from my first run of Week 5. This week seems to be a big turning point, as we go from 3 five minute runs (with short walks between) in day one, to 2 eight minute runs on day two, to a full 20 minutes of nonstop running by day three of week 5. I'm a bit intimidated, but determined. So far so good on day one.